I just got woken up by a helicopter with a spot light and police cars circling my apartment complex in South Austin off South ridge Dr. The calls to the police department are of course useless.... Anybody know what’s going on?

I don't think this was it. This happened just after midnight it says in the article. I am in S Austin too. The helicopter circled over my house and what looked to be Mary Moore Park and Southpark Meadows for about 15 minutes or so. Wish I could tell you what happened. My husband and I were wondering the same thing.

When a 'copter is that low over my house for a good 25 minutes1, I kinda want to know what they're up to. I called 311 for information, got transfered to a cop PR line, and left a message. I got a call back the next day: they said they were mainly up for air time, but did respond to a break in a block or two over.

I live in a first floor apartment by myself... if they are hunting for somebody with a helicopter running around my apartment at 1 am, I don’t think it's dumb to try to find out why. Last time I checked self preservation was a good thing.

Oh Jesus. So *if* they said that a murderer was in your apartment complex would you remain calm? Or would you get hysiterical calling all your neighbors and making everything more complicated for the police?

I've seen the helicopter orbiting various low-income neighborhoods scanning with the spotlight off and on for a year or two now. There have been a few high-incident chases where it's been actively following something or someone on the ground, but for the most part, it seems like regular helicopter patrols, but it's pretty clearly targeted on poorer/ less conservative neighborhoods. (My guess is that if APD tried the same thing in Tarrytown or Northwest Hills, most of the APD command would be getting summarily fired starting at the top and working down the chain of command.)

I don't mind them patrolling by helicopter. But I also know about some of the technology that's on that helicopter (gyro-stabilized visible light and FLIR cameras, among other things, that can capture perfectly decent video from up to 4-5 miles away), and hovering 100 feet or less above residential neighborhoods probably isn't necessary for anything but a show of force for intimidation purposes ..

And I just now noticed the timestamp on the OP's post. That's just effing rude.

(They do that around the Rundberg/Lamar area too, not quite that low, but I really wonder how they expect people to sleep with the helicopter noise. Definitely a sight that makes me feel like I'm in a prison camp, not at home in my hometown.)

Well when they were in my neighborhood awhile back they were looking for numerous murderers. Yeah I'd want to know too. Having that loud thing nearly in your backyard for a half hour at 3am is definitely disturbing on numerous levels.